Third Party Evaluator's Opinion on Xi'an-Ankang Railway Construction

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Third Party Evaluator's Opinion on Xi'an-Ankang Railway Construction Third Party Evaluator’s Opinion on Xi’an-Ankang Railway Construction Project (1)-(3) Qunren Li Research Professor China Academy of Railway Sciences Impact As has expounded upon in the Ex-post Evaluation Report, the construction and operation of the Xi’an-Ankang railway has helped push economic development in the zone of impact by increasing the freight transportation volume, those of ores of various kinds in particular. In a similar manner, the increased passenger transportation volume with the construction of the line has also brought economic benefits to the region. Apart from Xi'an and Ankang, major cities at the two ends, an important administrative district that the Xi'an-Ankang railway passing through is Shangluo (consisting of Zhashui county and Zhen'an county), a city located in the Qinling mountainous area which, before the construction of the Xi'an-Ankang railway, suffered slow economy development and urban construction due to poor communication. The city enjoys many natual advantages for development: close to provincial capital Xi'an city, with a climate of pleasant cool in summer, little air pollution and nice scenery, which makes it a nature summer resort and offers a prospect of turning into the "back garden" of Xi'an city. Yet the handicapped traffic to Xi’an before the construction of the Xi’an-Ankang railway, taking more than more than 5 hours, made its advantages unable to be brought into play . Now the communication has become a lot convenient with the travel time between Xi'an and Shangluo shortened to a little more than 1 hour. Increasing Xi'an residents are purchasing villas and commodity houses in Shangluo and shuttling between the two places, accelerating the process of turning Shangluo into the suburb of Xi'an, and pushing ahead Shangluo’s the property development. Before the operation of Xi'an-Ankang railway, the real estate in Shangluo was in a state of being declining. In 2002, the second year following Xi'an-Ankang railway opening, the output values of both real estates and commodity housing rokceted more than 200%, and kept high in 2003. Table 1 and figure 1 show the the growth in the output values of real estates and commodity housing in Shangluo. Table 1 Output of real estates and commodity house in 1999-2003 (thousand RMB, in constant term of 1999 price) Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Real estates 35100 21490 20250 66320 80830 Commodity house 27910 21490 20250 62240 74780 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 real estates 4000 commodity house 3000 2000 1000 0 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Figure 1 Output of real estates and commodity house in 1999-2003 (thousand RMB, in constant term of 1999 price) The operation of Xi'an-Ankang railway has significantly shortened the equivalent distance between Xi'an and Shangluo and promoted personnel exchanges between the two cities. As a result the economy is growing at quickened steps and along with the property purchasing by Xi’an citizens in Shangluo, the medical care and education are moving ahead. (Source: Statistical Yearbook of Shaanxi Province, 2000-2004) Effectiveness The Xi'an-Ankang railway is serving primarily for freight transport between the Sichuan area (the Sichuan province and Chongqing city) and the upcountry provinces. Besides, there are 2 other railways playing the similar role: Bao-cheng railway and Xiang-yu railway. Traffic volumes of these 3 railways all stand around 130-150 million ton and are equally near saturation. A plan for doubling the track of the Xiang-yu and Xi'an-Ankang railways are being considered, which will result in a more than 200% increase in the transit capacity. However, freight transport between upcountry provinces and the Sichuan area need to pass through the Luoyang-Xi'an section which is currently at the 100% utilizing rate of parallel train performance diagram and, before the construction completion and operation of the Xi'an-Zhengzhou dedicated passenger railway, the traffic volume on the line can hardly have any significant increase. The increased freight transportation between the Sichuan area and upcountry provinces will be likely to be going through Xiang-yu railway. In all likelihood the construction of the Zhengzhou-Xi'an dedicated passenger railway will be completed later than the double tracking of Xiang-yu railway. Hence, before the completion and operation of Xi'an-Zhengzhou dedicated passenger railway, the growth in traffic volume of Xi-an-Ankang railway will be be limited. Moreover, built in a tough mountain area the Xi'an-Ankang railway has higher construction cost, about 2 times higher than that built in plain areas, and the operation cost is estimated at 2-4 times or even higher than the average operation cost in the Ministry of Railways. The tariff of Xi'an-Ankang railway presently is being fixed based on the average cost in the Ministry of Railways. Should the tariff of the line be fixed based on the real cost, which will be much higher, the traffic volume of the line will be decreased as a result. Previously the above 3 railways are all run by the Zhengzhou railway administration, which allows an easier rational traffic assignment between the 3 lines. Since this March, the Xi'an railway sub-administration and the Ankang railway sub-administration were organized to form a new Xi'an railway administration. With the 3 railways being administrated by 2 separate railway administrations, coordinating traffic assignment is likely to be affected. .
Recommended publications
  • An Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Urbanization Patterns in Northwest China
    land Article An Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Urbanization Patterns in Northwest China Haifen Lei 1,2, Jennifer Koch 2 and Hui Shi 1,* 1 School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China; [email protected] 2 Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 6 September 2020; Accepted: 19 October 2020; Published: 27 October 2020 Abstract: Chinese metropolitan areas have been experiencing urbanization over the past decades, impacting biodiversity, carbon emissions, urban heat islands, and food security. Yet, systematic research on spatio-temporal urbanization patterns and drivers along the urban–rural gradient is rarely reported for northwest China. Here, we use land-use data from 1980 to 2015 to explore land-use change, urbanization intensity, and drivers in northwest China. Our results display direct and indirect effects of urban expansion on farmland loss, but also spatio-temporal heterogeneity in the urbanization patterns. While the earlier years were dominated by infill and land conversion close to city centers, the later years displayed sprawling urbanization following the constraints of terrain and administrative boundaries at the cost of farmland. Our regression analysis of spatial variables found a strong relationship with urban planning factors. The spatial analysis of urbanization patterns revealed indirect land-use change on former farmland. Furthermore, we found that regional geography and historic sites considerably influenced land conversion. Overall, our findings indicate the need for sustainable planning strategies that synthesize approaches to farmland and historic site protection and consideration of regionally specific landscape characteristics.
    [Show full text]
  • Protection and Utilization of Confucian Temple in Southern Shaanxi from the Perspective of Cultural Heritage
    Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2020, 8, 225-237 https://www.scirp.org/journal/jss ISSN Online: 2327-5960 ISSN Print: 2327-5952 Protection and Utilization of Confucian Temple in Southern Shaanxi from the Perspective of Cultural Heritage Hongdan Guo School of Literature and Media, Ankang University, Ankang, China How to cite this paper: Guo, H. D. (2020). Abstract Protection and Utilization of Confucian Temple in Southern Shaanxi from the As a precious historical and cultural heritage, we should not only pay attention Perspective of Cultural Heritage. Open to protection and inheritance, but also fully consider how to develop and utilize Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 225-237. the Confucian temples. For this purpose, we carried out field research on the https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2020.812017 remaining Confucian temples in southern Shaanxi, where social attention is Received: November 10, 2020 low. After investigation, it was found that: the situation of surviving Confucian Accepted: December 15, 2020 temples in southern Shaanxi is different. There are some Confucian temples Published: December 18, 2020 where the ancient buildings are relatively well preserved, or got seriously dam- aged but have been restored or rebuilt. There are also some Confucian temples Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. where only a few buildings or a single building exist, or even no physical build- This work is licensed under the Creative ings in the ruins. In terms of the utilization of the existing Confucian temples, Commons Attribution International except for some Confucian temples, which are now integrated with museums License (CC BY 4.0).
    [Show full text]
  • 1 China Xi'an-Ankang Railway Construction Project
    China Xi’an-Ankang Railway Construction Project (1)-(3) (CXVII-P73, CXVIII-P73, CXIX-P73) External Evaluator: Mitsue Mishima (OPMAC) Field Survey: October 2004 1. Project Profile and Japan’s ODA Loan Mongolia Beijing North Korea China South Korea Project site Xian Nepal Ankang Bhutan India Taiwan Myanmar Vietnam Laos Project site location map (Xian-Ankang, Shannxi Province) Qingcha Tunnel 1.1 Background The project site (Xian- Ankang) is located in the southern part of Shaanxi Province where the 3000-meter high Qinling Mountains extend over 1500 kilometers, and was therefore undeveloped due to difficulties in transportation and remoteness from cities. Southwest of the project site is Sichuan Province, the largest province with a population of 110 million accounting for 10% of the population of China. However, as there is no other transport route to Sichuan Province than taking a detour around the Qinling Mountains, there were only limited routes to transport energy and everyday commodities from the north. Railway transport from other regions to Sichuan Province depended on Baoching Line (Baoji-Chengdu) from the north and Xiangyu Line (Xiangfan-Ankang-Chongquing) from the east, and both lines were operating to full capacity. It was particularly difficult to double-track Baoching Line, which takes a detour to avoid the Qinling Mountains because of 1) long distance of transport, 2) large cost to transport on a gradient at an angel of 3%, and 3) the topographical problem. The opening of the electrified single track of Xian-Ankang Line not only helped increase the transport capacity within Shaanxi Province but also shortened the traveling distance to Chongquing and eased the transportation load on Baoching Line.
    [Show full text]
  • The Spreading of Christianity and the Introduction of Modern Architecture in Shannxi, China (1840-1949)
    Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid Programa de doctorado en Concervación y Restauración del Patrimonio Architectónico The Spreading of Christianity and the introduction of Modern Architecture in Shannxi, China (1840-1949) Christian churches and traditional Chinese architecture Author: Shan HUANG (Architect) Director: Antonio LOPERA (Doctor, Arquitecto) 2014 Tribunal nombrado por el Magfco. y Excmo. Sr. Rector de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, el día de de 20 . Presidente: Vocal: Vocal: Vocal: Secretario: Suplente: Suplente: Realizado el acto de defensa y lectura de la Tesis el día de de 20 en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. Calificación:………………………………. El PRESIDENTE LOS VOCALES EL SECRETARIO Index Index Abstract Resumen Introduction General Background........................................................................................... 1 A) Definition of the Concepts ................................................................ 3 B) Research Background........................................................................ 4 C) Significance and Objects of the Study .......................................... 6 D) Research Methodology ...................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Chinese traditional architecture 1.1 The concept of traditional Chinese architecture ......................... 13 1.2 Main characteristics of the traditional Chinese architecture .... 14 1.2.1 Wood was used as the main construction materials ........ 14 1.2.2
    [Show full text]
  • Preparing the Shaanxi-Qinling Mountains Integrated Ecosystem Management Project (Cofinanced by the Global Environment Facility)
    Technical Assistance Consultant’s Report Project Number: 39321 June 2008 PRC: Preparing the Shaanxi-Qinling Mountains Integrated Ecosystem Management Project (Cofinanced by the Global Environment Facility) Prepared by: ANZDEC Limited Australia For Shaanxi Province Development and Reform Commission This consultant’s report does not necessarily reflect the views of ADB or the Government concerned, and ADB and the Government cannot be held liable for its contents. (For project preparatory technical assistance: All the views expressed herein may not be incorporated into the proposed project’s design. FINAL REPORT SHAANXI QINLING BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND DEMONSTRATION PROJECT PREPARED FOR Shaanxi Provincial Government And the Asian Development Bank ANZDEC LIMITED September 2007 CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS (as at 1 June 2007) Currency Unit – Chinese Yuan {CNY}1.00 = US $0.1308 $1.00 = CNY 7.64 ABBREVIATIONS ADB – Asian Development Bank BAP – Biodiversity Action Plan (of the PRC Government) CAS – Chinese Academy of Sciences CASS – Chinese Academy of Social Sciences CBD – Convention on Biological Diversity CBRC – China Bank Regulatory Commission CDA - Conservation Demonstration Area CNY – Chinese Yuan CO – company CPF – country programming framework CTF – Conservation Trust Fund EA – Executing Agency EFCAs – Ecosystem Function Conservation Areas EIRR – economic internal rate of return EPB – Environmental Protection Bureau EU – European Union FIRR – financial internal rate of return FDI – Foreign Direct Investment FYP – Five-Year Plan FS – Feasibility
    [Show full text]
  • E-Commerce Poverty Alleviation Experience in Shaanxi Province
    Best Practice on the Inclusive Trade of the APEC Region Xi’an Experience in E-commerce Poverty Alleviation APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance December 4, 2018 Contents Preface ........................................................................................................................... 2 E-commerce Poverty Alleviation Experience in Shaanxi Province ......................... 5 1. Do a Good Job in Design and Work in an All-round Way .................................. 5 2. Lay a Solid Foundation and Create a Good Environment .................................. 5 3. Bring in Competitive Enterprises to Lead E-commerce Poverty Alleviation ..... 6 4. Coordinate Production and Marketing to Promote Connectivity between Agriculture and Commerce ..................................................................................... 6 5. Conduct Personnel Training and Strengthen the Service System ....................... 6 6. Innovate the Business Modes.............................................................................. 7 Typical Cases of E-commerce Poverty Alleviation in Shaanxi Province ................ 9 1. Lantian County, Xi’an City .............................................................................. 9 2. Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City ................................................................. 12 3. Ankang City ................................................................................................... 14 4. Huinong E-commerce Co., Ltd. ....................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Analysis of Rural Women's Economic Participation in Shaanxi Province, China: Preliminary Results and Insights Mei Yang Allan R
    Analysis of Rural Women’s Economic Participation in Shaanxi Province, China: Preliminary Results and Insights Mei Yang Allan Rae David Tripe Martin Young Huiyan Zhao School of Economics and Finance, Massey University ABSTRACT China has made significant progress in economic reform. This has entailed large scale migration and urbanization, but there is an accompanying problem of position of women in agricultural production in rural areas. To explore this, the study examines rural women’s barriers and potential in economic participation in Shaanxi province through a survey of 356 rural women including both those engaging in farming and off-farming activities from three regions of Shaanxi with different developing characteristics. We use a mixed research methodology with both qualitative and quantitative elements. Unlike a handful of previous relevant studies, the collection of primary data allows a more in depth and systematic analysis of the current situation of rural women and the barriers they are facing. Preliminary results indicate that the situation of rural women in China presents a range of characteristics due to political factors, geographical location, low education attainment, and their role as care-providers. The results presented here here is mainly concerning the part of rural women engaging in farming. 1. Introduction Over the last three decades, China’s industrialization and urbanization have been on an unprecedented scale(Bank, 2014): Around 250 million migrants have moved to cities from rural areas (NBSC, 2012) in supporting the country’s rapid economic growth which has averaged around 10% annually. Meanwhile, starting from 2000, the number of left-behind rural women1 or using a specific term in Chinese, Liushou women has increased sharply and it still increases each year.
    [Show full text]
  • 2018 Social Insurance Rates in China
    P a g e | 1 2018 Social Insurance Rates in China February 27, 2019 1 P a g e | 2 Contents 1. An Overview of Social Insurance ............................................................................................... 4 2. Official Social Insurance Policy Documents from Recent Years ............................................... 6 3. Social Insurance Policies of each Province and City ................................................................. 9 Beijing ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Tianjin ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Shanghai ................................................................................................................................... 12 Chongqing ................................................................................................................................. 13 Henan ........................................................................................................................................ 13 Shandong .................................................................................................................................. 15 Gansu ........................................................................................................................................ 17 Anhui ........................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Measuring Spatial Morphology Synergy Between Old and New Areas in Fenghuang Town (Shaanxi)
    ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MEASURING SPATIAL MORPHOLOGY SYNERGY BETWEEN OLD AND NEW AREAS IN FENGHUANG TOWN (SHAANXI) Haizhao Hao, Ph.D. candidate of College of Architecture, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, China Laura Pezzetti, Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Urban Composition, Politecnico di Milano, Italy ABSTRACT During last century’s evolution of the spatial form of the ancient town, the problem of uncoordinated development appeared, such as unbalanced land use layout, uncontrolled spatial order and inconsistent typological development. In the existing research, there are many quantitative studies on the spatial form in historical villages and towns, but relatively little qualitative and quantitative research on the spatial morphological principles and potential synergy between the old and new areas of the ancient town. The adaptation of historical towns needs to meet both the needs of preservation of the traditional structures and their generative matrixes and new appropriate spatial connection with the context formed by new regions. Only if based on understanding of generative rules of existing morphologies and their historic overlapping, the measurement of spatial morphology synergy between the old and new areas of the ancient town can provide an assessment of urban adaptation. Its scientific measurement can integrate and manage the spatial coordination strategy. Fenghuang Town is typical and representative in the ancient towns of southern Shaanxi. The synergy measurement method of the old and new areas of the ancient town is mainly based on the old area's space form as a standard. This paper quantitatively analyzes the protection status of the old area and the inheritance status of the new area, and mainly measures the coordinated situation of spatial form from the spatial boundary, land layout, street, courtyard.
    [Show full text]
  • A Case Study on COVID-19 Infections in Shaanxi Province, China
    www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Health‑seeking and diagnosis delay and its associated factors: a case study on COVID‑19 infections in Shaanxi Province, China Wenyuan Zheng1, Fabrice Kämpfen2 & Zhiyong Huang3* This time‑to‑event study examines social factors associated with health‑seeking and diagnosis of 165 COVID‑19 cases in response to the pandemic spread in Shaanxi Province, China. In particular, we investigate the diferential access to healthcare in terms of delayed time from symptom onset to frst medical visit and subsequently to diagnosis by factors such as sex, age, travel history, and type of healthcare utilization. We show that it takes more time for patients older than 60 (against those under 30) to seek healthcare after developing symptoms (+ 2.5 days, p < 0.01 ), surveillance on people with living or travel history to Wuhan helps shorten the time to the frst doctor visit (− 0.8 days) and diagnosis (− 2.2 days, p < 0.01 ). A delay cut is associated with the adoption of intermediary and large hospitals rather than community‑based care as primary care choices (− 1.6 days, p < 0.1 and − 2.2 days, p < 0.05 ). One unit increase of healthcare workers per 1000 people saves patients 0.5 days ( p < 0.1 ) for diagnosis from the frst doctor visit and 0.6 days ( p < 0.05 ) in total. Our analysis of factors associated with the time delay for diagnosis may provide a better understanding of the health‑ seeking behaviors of patients and the diagnosis capacity of healthcare providers during the COVID‑19 pandemic. In December 2019, a series of unknown-cause pneumonia cases, later named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), were reported in Wuhan, China, and has since spread rapidly, becoming a global pan- demic within months.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Article (PDF)
    Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 72 International Conference on Management, Education and Social Science (ICMESS 2017) Studies on Spatial Structure of Tourist Attractions in Edge-Typed Tourism City -A Case Study of Ankang Ma Teng; Wang Xing; Tang Beipei; Zhang Baigang; Rui Yang* College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University Xi’an710127, China Abstract—Taking Ankang as a typical case of edge-typed However, it should be noted that the "edge" of Ankang is more tourism city, we analyze the compactness, agglomeration, due to the comparison to its corresponding strong core tourist differentiation characteristics of its class-A tourist attractions city—Xi'an, its tourist location, resources, market isn’t spatial structures and explore the spatial path out of the edge of absolutely "non-superiority”. Especially with the building of the plight for edge-typed tourism city, basing on the spatial large Qinling Mountain humanistic eco-tourism holiday circle, statistical and mathematical methods such as compactness index, Ankang tourism development has entered to the new stage of coefficient of variation, scale index, unevenness index and core tourist attractions construction drive and global tourism superiority index. The results indicated that: ①The degree of pattern conformation, it is possible to grow into a new core compactness and unevenness of Ankang class-A tourist tourist destination. attractions spatial distribution are high. Spatial clustering is significant. ② Differentiation characteristics in number, size, Based on that, this paper takes the Ankang class-A tourist quality and influence of the Ankang class-A tourist attractions attractions as research object, using compactness index, are different, but Hanbin District and Shiquan County have coefficient of variation and unevenness index to identify the shown a clear advantage in all aspects.
    [Show full text]
  • Analysis of the Spatial-Temporal Change of the Vegetation Index in the Upper Reach of Han River Basin in 2000–2016
    Innovative water resources management – understanding and balancing interactions between humankind and nature Proc. IAHS, 379, 287–292, 2018 https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-379-287-2018 Open Access © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Analysis of the spatial-temporal change of the vegetation index in the upper reach of Han River Basin in 2000–2016 Jinkai Luan1, Dengfeng Liu1,2, Lianpeng Zhang1, Qiang Huang1, Jiuliang Feng3, Mu Lin4, and Guobao Li5 1State Key Laboratory of Eco-hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, School of Water Resources and Hydropower, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China 2Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA 3Shanxi Provincal Water and Soil Conservation and Ecological Environment Construction Center, Taiyuan 030002, China 4School of statistics and Mathematics, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081, China 5Work team of hydraulic of Yulin City, Yulin 719000, China Correspondence: Dengfeng Liu ([email protected]) Received: 29 December 2017 – Revised: 25 March 2018 – Accepted: 26 March 2018 – Published: 5 June 2018 Abstract. Han River is the water source region of the middle route of South-to-North Water Diversion in China and the ecological projects were implemented since many years ago. In order to monitor the change of vegetation in Han River and evaluate the effect of ecological projects, it is needed to reveal the spatial-temporal change of the vegetation in the upper reach of Han River quantitatively. The study is based on MODIS/Terra NDVI remote sensing data, and analyzes the spatial-temporal changes of the NDVI in August from 2000 to 2016 at pixel scale in the upper reach of Han River Basin.
    [Show full text]